In computing environments, virtual switches may be used that comprise software modules capable of providing a communication platform for one or more virtual nodes in the computing environment. These virtual switches may provide switching operations, routing operations, distributed firewall operations, and the like, and may be used to intelligently direct communication on the network by inspecting packets before passing them to other computing nodes (both physical and virtual). For example, packets may be inspected to determine the source and destination internet protocol (IP) addresses to determine if the communication is permitted to be delivered to the destination computing node. In some implementations, software defined networks may be designed with packet forwarding configurations that indicate actions to be taken against each communicated packet. The packet forwarding configurations may identify specific attributes, such as IP addresses, media access control (MAC) addresses, and the like, within the data packet and, when identified, provide a set of actions to be asserted against the data packet. These actions may include modifications to the data packet, and forwarding rules for the data packet, amongst other possible operations.
In some implementations, the virtual switching software may require updates, which can provide additional stability and/or additional features and operations. Traditionally, these updates would require the shutdown of virtual nodes attached to a particular virtual switch, or a migration of the virtual nodes to a second host with a virtual switch. However, these update procedures may require the use of unnecessary computing resources, such as the second host computing system, or may require undesirable downtime during the shutdown or migration of the virtual nodes.